first prey

running through the forest cain paid keen attention to the surrounding landscape for signs of a worthy prey to hunt. after a little, while he found what looked like an extensive snake trail, however, this one was overly exaggerated as the snake made this would have to be at least a meter wide. finding his next target, cain began to follow the snake trail looking for his new target. after about half an hour of tracking, he found the snake sunbathing on a flat boulder in a small clearing. it was roughly fifteen meters long and a meter wide with dark brown scales and two small stubs sticking out from its head.

changing his form to suit an armored foe, Cain's fists started growing a thick plating with small spikes at the knuckles while his tale blade split into three narrow, finger-like extremities. he did not need to grow in size because his highly condensed and refined muscle mass was able to support many times his current body weight with minimal strain allowing him to deliver blows with strength deceptive to his size and stature.

Cain's self-made cultivation technique, primal growth, was not only made for cultivation but had different fighting styles built into it. During his stay, Cain read many books about martial arts, self-defense, biology, and the like while incorporating them into primal growth as not only a way to train his body but to fight as efficiently as possible.

Due to his ever-changing form, he needed a combat style to match it, and as there were no existing ones that worked, like meant things he's had to do recently, he made his own. It didn't have a name as it was part of primal growth but if he had to name it it would be primal growth-combat form.

Getting into stance he tightened spring-like muscle formations in his legs and arms meant for explosive power and dashed toward the serpent.

Sensing a threat around it the serpent's eyes shot open as it began to uncoil from the rock, but before it could ready itself for a fight cains fist had already reached its case as he directed the full power of his momentum and attack combined before blaming his spiked fist into the serpent's skull.

Rattled by the sudden impact it couldn't react as a rain of blows continued to strike its body, all with the same power as the first.

Just moments after launching the first attack cain had utterly brutalized the Beast before it could even react and fight back. Unlike what he would do in the old forest, his stolen instincts told him that staying here was a bad idea, while before any scavengers could be dealt with without trouble, he could tell the things in this forest were more dangerous.

After a while everyone but cain was at the meeting point, each boasting prey with the others based on the size and difficulty. While they were doing this however they began to hear bushes being trampled and low-hanging tree branches breaking. Turning toward the forest they saw a large shadow moving towards them. Thinking they were under attack they drew their weapons only to be shocked as cain dragged the corpse of the now beaten and bloodied body of the serpent by its horns into the now very quiet clearing.

Looking around, Cain's prey was at least twice as big as the biggest hunt here, a large red wolf-looking creature. While cain couldn't tell as his aura was stronger, the aura of the serpent, even while dead, put a cold sweat down the backs of most of the class. The reason they didn't pass out because of Cains was that he restrained his, something he would do naturally in the forest to sneak up on prey that he never really stopped doing.

One of the more knowledgeable people in the group looked over and said "That's a high-rank one-star great serpent! They only live near the border of the second zone!"

Looking down at his hunt cain merely mattered the word "oh." before beginning to eat his prey as he was now in a relatively safe space. Seeing someone eat a monster raw, something that was considered suicide as they were highly poisonous without proper processing, so nonchalantly stunned the group for a decent while before they tried to stop him from killing themself.

However, as soon as someone put their hands on the rapidly disappearing body cain released his aura. Everyone, regardless of power, race, or hunting experience immediately felt as if the eyes of some unknowable beast were starting down their necks. They knew right then and there, if they were to continue, they would die.

Dropping backward from fear the man let go of the body and just as fast as it came the feeling of dread disappeared, so fast some thought they had imagined it. Looking around though, they saw the cold sweat on the others and realized it did happen.

Looking back up from his meal cain simply said "I have been told not to eat anyone but if you touch anything I own I will kill you." before continuing to eat. Overlooking the whole situation was the supervisor who was doing arguably worse than the others. The rest of the class couldn't feel the true horror of Cain's aura as they were not strong enough. While they only had the feeling of being watched, the supervisor could see the raw and terrifying aura coming off cain. And after hearing his threat he did not doubt that he would follow through and end any one of them if they dared to touch anything he claimed as 'his'.

That night cain was resting in his room processing the gains from his latest hunt. something that interested him was a part of the serpent's bloodline. While the majority of it was regular with some random things mixed in, which was to be expected of an animal in the wild as cross-breading was common with monsters. A very small part, almost missed by him it was that tiny, Was vastly more valuable than the rest of the beast. Just this tiny part of whatever the bloodline came from was enough to greatly increase the quality of Cain's bloodline, in turn increasing his overall power. Not only did it greatly increase every part of his physical body including but not limited to its efficiency, control, power, and many others it also caused the surrounding mana to flood toward him like he was a black hole. After entering his heart the mana would be purified, compressed, and overall strengthened before flowing through his veins and back to his heart where a new batch of mana would be refined and added to the whole before it was refined again and sent back on its way so the cycle could continue. In a matter of minutes, he had fully formed his first ring and was rapidly forming the second while he broke through to the second stage of body refining.

Not only this but the quality of both where much higher than expected, sadly this came with a downside, because of the high quality of said breakthroughs he needed much more mana than expected for the next, after some calculations he realized that the increase in mana quality and quantity was at least five times higher than before and would only get higher as time went on.